You've been watching Craigslist for a good deal on a hedge trimmer, but you just aren't having any luck. By the time you find a good listing, it's been up for an hour and the HedgeHog XR is long gone. You could sit and refresh the farm+garden category constantly, but that's a waste of time. (Besides, what would your boss think?) Fortunately, there's a better way.

Did you know it's also possible to watch Craigslist searches via RSS feed?

Instead of subscribing to entire categories (and then having to wade through countless irrelevant results), you can subscribe to specific searches. Let's say, for example, that I wanted to buy a Mini Cooper. Because it's such a huge expense, I might want to wait for exactly the right car to come along. Instead of navigating to the Craigslist site a dozen times per day, I could simply subscribe to a search that features all the results I'm interested in. It's easy to do.

Step One: Search Craigslist
Simply search for the item you want. If you need to refine the search by category or by price, enter the additional parameters. The results page will list the current matches.

Step Two: Subscribe to Feed
The final step has a tiny trick to it: You have to find the RSS feed. You can't just use the RSS icon in your browser's address bar. (Well, I can't anyhow.) Instead, scroll to the bottom right corner of the page. There, tucked out of sight, is the RSS feed for your search.

In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals.

I monitor craigslist for several things using the RSS feeds and Google Reader, it works great. You can also get feeds for eBay searches and follow those too. And for sites without RSS feeds, use something like FeedYes.com to scrape the site and create a feed. We got our dog from the Humane Society this way – every time our breed came up, by the time we saw it and contact the Humane Society, there was a waiting list. But creating a feed and following with Google Reader, we got our new pup on the first try!

I could have sworn that Kris and I used to set up e-mail subscriptions for Craigslist, but I can’t find that feature anymore. Does anyone else know about this? I just remember looking for mirrors and furniture when we moved into this house four years ago, and we did so by e-mail updates…

Sellers: research reasonable prices before posting, remove posts quickly when the item sells/is given away. Include pictures and links, it’s easy and super helpful. Include honest descriptions, it saves everyone loads of time.

I love the convenience of this, but it seems like it would take a lot of self-control not to indulge. It would be easy to go from “I’m curious about what kind of deals I can get on new golf clubs” to “That’s the lowest price I’ve seen so I’d better buy them” without realizing it. Still, for purchases you’ve already decided on, this sounds pretty darn cool.

I don’t use RSS feeds, but I’ve done something similar in the past while looking for an apartment–I bookmarked my search page and set it as my homepage, so everytime I fired up my browser, I could skim the newest listings.

Epic post. This is an awesome tool on CL that so many people do not know about. Also, when you are selling stuff (a lot of stuff like my wife and I do as a side business) you can put a codeword in all the listings you have. The reason to do this is that if you have someone coming over to buy something you have listed, you can tell them to go search on that codeword and see everything you have for sale. This is like a never ending garage sale of all of your stuff. An example of a keyword would be RTMFURN (for Return To Manliness Furniture). If they burn the RSS for this search, they will see your postings as soon as they arrive. Really cool.

A much better way of doing this is to aggregate feeds using Yahoo Pipes. It offers a simple, visual way of combining search feeds into one RSS so that you only need to subscribe to one. Much easier to manage. For example, I have a search for Free Items in North Portland… but sometimes people enter ‘NoPo’ as their location or frequently enter major intersections as their location. So I used Craiglist to search each of the area keywords. I them combined them in Yahoo Pipes and used their ‘filter’ feature to remove certain things that are frequently listed that I don’t care about (dirt, concrete and bushes).

If this doesn’t make sense I could write a little how-to, if anyone’s interested.

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My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

General Disclaimer: Get Rich Slowly is an independent website managed by J.D. Roth, who is not a trained financial expert. His knowledge comes from the school of hard knocks. He does his best to provide accurate, useful info, but makes no guarantee that all readers will achieve the same level of success. If you have questions, consult a trained professional.

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